


For Everything a Reason

by smaragdbird



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Episode 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 18:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12415770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: Gabriel Lorca knows there a lot of good reasons not to get to close to Ash Tyler





	For Everything a Reason

Gabriel brushed off his CMO’s concerns about his physical wellbeing and got her reluctant permission to get an overview of the situation before he had to report to sick bay. Before he left for the bridge he managed to request that Dr. Culber would treat Lieutenant Tyler instead of herself. Dr. Culber had by far the best bedside manner of the Discovery’s medical team and he didn’t share the gender of Tyler’s abuser.

The idea of spending seven months at the mercy of a Klingon was enough to make him shiver. It was the exact thing Gabriel had wanted to spare his old command from. That Tyler had survived those seven months and had attacked his abuser as soon as he had the chance told Gabriel a lot about him.

Getting debriefed about the actions taken under Saru’s command, Dr. Stamets dangerous and illegal self-experiment and Burnham’s release of the tardigrade took a few hours. The official report to Starfleet would be far shorter and a lot more vague. Still, his crew had shown initiative and strategic thinking. He just hoped he didn’t need to get taken prisoner each time to motivate them.

His communicator chimed and his CMO’s stern face reminded him that he should report to sick bay sooner rather than later. He needed to go anyway to talk to Tyler about him joining the Discovery. Starfleet had already been notified that Lieutenant Ash Tyler had been freed and had requested to remain aboard the Discovery.

The sick bay was painfully bright as always. Gabriel considered that Admiral Cornwell had a point when she had told him to get his eyes fixed. It was a handicap and he was a sentimental fool for leaving the injury untreated for as long as he had.

Considering that they had just escaped from deep within Klingon territory there were thankfully few beds occupied. Dr. Stamets was lying on one, being subjected to a number of scans, tests and the occasional glare from Dr. Culber, who was using a dermal regenerator on Tyler’s hands.

“Scan first”, his CMO said as Gabriel made a step towards the three men, “Then you can talk to them.”

“You know I wouldn’t lie to you about a serious injury, Doc”, Gabriel said as he sat down on an empty biobed. 

She gave him an unimpressed look as she started scanning him. “You and I had very different definitions of what constitutes ‘serious’ in the past.”

“My torture was very painful but mercifully brief”, he told her. “Though I need to talk to you about getting my eyes fixed. The Klingon’s knew about it. It’s a liability now, not a memento.”

“Finally”, she said. If Dr. Culber had the best beside manner then she had the worst, which was exactly what Gabriel appreciated.

He looked over to Stamets and Tyler. “Anything I need to know?”

“You mean aside from Stamets’ explicitly forbidden transgenic experiment? He seems fine apart from the puncture wounds left by the machine. Hugh might kill him as soon as he gets released from sick bay but with those two there’s a 20% chance of that any given day.”

“If the injuries left by the machine can be avoided, is it a viable alternative to finding another tardigrade?”

“I don’t know”, she said, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. “I know we’re fighting a war and you don’t care about transgenic laws, but I know so little about this that I cannot even make an educated guess.”

Gabriel nodded. He hadn’t expected anything else from her. “And Lieutenant Tyler?”

“Physically he should make a full recovery but I recommend psychological evaluations in regular intervals if you want to keep him on this ship. I already scheduled an appointment with Dr. Heightmeyer for him.” She looked him in the eyes. “You might want to reconsider though. An active warship isn’t the right place for a recovering prisoner of war.”

Gabriel met her eyes without hesitation. “I’ve seen him fight during our escape. He wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

His CMO let him leave with a skeptical look, an appointment for his eye surgery and a clean bill of health. Gabriel decided to talk to Stamets first to get a better picture regarding the situation of the spore drive.

Despite his superior grasp on the topic Stamets wasn’t much more forthcoming on the subject than his CMO had been. Transgenic laws were a touchy subject at best but at least Stamets agreed to give a comprehensive report about their possibilities tomorrow once he had collated the data with Tilly and Burnham.

Ignoring the familiar feeling of frustration that he often had after talking to Stamets, Gabriel walked over to Tyler, whose superficial injures had been treated though the bone generator would remain around his ankle for the rest of the night.

When Tyler noticed him he tried to get up from the bed but Gabriel stopped him, reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Easy, Lieutenant. Dr. Culber won’t be happy if you undo his work.”

“Sorry, sir”, Tyler replied and sat back down. 

“How do you feel?”

“Like none of this is real”, Tyler replied, glancing around the sick bay before giving Gabriel the hint of a smile.

“Understandable”, Gabriel said. Surviving was one thing, living with that survival another. “You’ll remain here for tonight but I’ll make sure you get quarters assigned first thing in the morning. I already notified Starfleet of your recovery from enemy hands and of your wish to remain aboard the Discovery.”

“Thank you, sir”, Tyler said, sounding slightly surprised.

“Like I said there’s no need to thank me”, Gabriel replied. He did hope that he was doing the right thing by letting Tyler have his revenge on the Klingons instead of sending him home. “What was your assignment on your last ship?”

“I’m a navigator, sir, but I can train as something else if you don’t need one.” Tyler’s large brown eyes seemed to beg not to be sent home. Gabriel knew about the need to be useful only too well.

“Don’t worry about it”, Gabriel said, squeezing Tyler’s shoulder. “Another navigator is exactly what we need on this ship, though our way of transportation is a little unorthodox.”

He could see the curiosity spark in Tyler’s eyes. Good, that was exactly what he had intended. “You’ll know more tomorrow. For now, try to get some sleep.”

Gabriel was about to leave when Tyler asked, hesitantly, “Are you okay?” He looked concerned, which made Gabriel give him a reassuring smile.

“I am fine, Lieutenant. Don’t worry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good night”, Tyler said and Gabriel echoed his wish, despite knowing that it was unlikely either of them would rest peacefully.

/

He met Tyler in the sick bay the next morning before his own shift started. Tyler had been given a new uniform and a shower and looked every bit like Starfleet officer and not like a recently freed prisoner of war. 

“Good morning, Lieutenant”, Gabriel greeted him.

“Good morning, sir”, Tyler replied, giving him a salute.

“How’s the ankle?”

“Like new”, Tyler smiled a little and even if it didn’t reach his eyes, Gabriel was glad to see him make the effort. 

“Good to hear”, Gabriel said. “I’m going to show you your new quarters and then I’m going to introduce you to your new team.”

“Thank you, sir”, Tyler sounded surprised that Gabriel would do it himself instead of relegating the task to a more junior officer but he didn’t comment on it. 

On the way to the living quarters Gabriel pointed out a few directions to the mess hall and the bridge but mostly kept quiet. Tyler glanced around curiously, which was understandable. The Discovery was one of a kind now that the Glenn had been destroyed even if he didn’t know the full extent of it yet.

The quarters Gabriel had given him had used to Landry’s which meant Tyler wouldn’t have to share them. After seven months in a Klingon prison the man deserved some privacy. Otherwise the room was nothing special. Landry’s personal belongings had been sent to her family and Tyler had literally nothing but the clothes on his back.

“If you want to have something sent to you from Earth you can put in a request with Starfleet”, Gabriel told him. “We’re not scheduled for leave anytime soon but we do occasionally pick up supplies and mail at the various space stations.”

“I’ll think about it”, Tyler said and his tone hinted that there was something else he wanted to talk about but was hesitant to do so.

“What is it?” Gabriel had little time for people who didn’t get straight to heart of their issue but he understood that Tyler might be reluctant to talk about certain things.

“Dr. Culber told me this morning that I have an appointment with a Dr. Heightmeyer, a psychologist?” There was that look in his eyes again, the look that said he would do anything not to be sent home.

“Standard procedure”, Gabriel assured him. “Since we’re not sending you home to a proper treatment facility, Starfleet wants to be assured that we’re giving you the best possible treatment here and don’t worsen your mental health.”

When Tyler still looked unconvinced, Gabriel rested a hand on his shoulder, which made Tyler look him in the eyes. “You don’t have to tell Dr. Heightmeyer anything you don’t want to tell her. I am not sending you away. Besides my quarters are at the end of this corridor if you need anything. You’re on my crew now, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir”, Tyler gave him the ghost of a smile and Gabriel wondered for a split second how Tyler would look with a smile that reached all the way to his eyes before he dismissed the thought as inappropriate.

Maybe he was imagining it but Gabriel felt as if Tyler’s step was little lighter on the way to the engineering labs now that he had the reassurance that he wouldn’t be send away.

Dr. Stamets and his team were already assembled when Gabriel and Tyler arrived and were apparently in the middle of going over the data from Stamets’ piloting of the spore drive. 

“Captain”, Stamets’ tone was inches away from rude but he was brilliant so Gabriel had learned to ignore it. 

“Dr Stamets, Cadet Tilly, Burnham, this is Lieutenant Ash Tyler. He’ll be joining your team as a navigator. I expect you bring him up to speed on the spore drive.”

Tyler shook hands with everyone, even Burnham, and especially Tilly seemed to be excited to have the new guy on her team. Her often childlike enthusiasm made it easy to forget that not only was she the most intelligent person on this ship but also highly ambitious. Well, Gabriel didn’t forget but he found it amusing to see other people underestimate her at their own risk.

“I’ll leave you to your work”, Gabriel said. “Dr Stamets I expect your report before dinner.”

/

Gabriel spent most of the day in his office, filling out the necessary paperwork to keep Tyler on his crew, and adjusting his strategies against the Klingons now that they had lost their biggest advantage over them. Stamets’ report came shortly before the end of his shift and Gabriel decided to read it in his own quarters since he had skipped lunch and had a small scale replimat there.

Or at least that had been the idea. He was halfway through the report without having even spared a thought about food when his doorbell chimed. To his surprise it was Lieutenant Tyler.

“Good evening, sir”, Tyler said and Gabriel noticed he was holding a tray. “I noticed you weren’t in the mess hall and I thought that even if you’re too busy to eat dinner you might want dessert?”

It was either a sweet gesture or a flimsy excuse but Gabriel didn’t mind either way. “Very considerate of you, Lieutenant. Please come in.”

Instead of his desk, Gabriel led Tyler to the couch he kept opposite the window, the only creature comfort he let himself indulge in on this ship. 

“Is that a tribble?” Tyler asked as he sat down the tray on the coffee table.

“A joke from a friend”, Gabriel explained. “To help me keep my blood pressure down.” The dessert Tyler had brought was trifle, not his favourite by any means, but he wasn’t going to be rude and ignore it. “How was your first day?”

“It was fine. It was better than fine”, Tyler corrected himself, a bright smile appearing on his face. “It was amazing. What you’re doing is far beyond anything I could ever imagine. Being a part of that feels great.”

Tyler’s expression was so filled with honest enthusiasm that Gabriel felt vindicated in his decision to keep him on the ship. Not every day would be like this, of course, but it was a promising start. “I’m glad to hear that, Lieutenant.”

And then Tyler surprised him by asking, “How was your day?”

“It was fine”, Gabriel said, trying not to let his surprise show. “Mostly paperwork, a few schedule adjustments, that kind of thing. Not every day is a daring escape from a Klingon prison.”

“Thank god for that”, Tyler said before he ate a spoonful of his trifle and made a downright indecent noise. “Sorry”, he said immediately after swallowing. “I just…I never thought I’d be this happy to eat replimat food again.”

“Don’t tell me you had time to cook on the Yaeger.”

“Sometimes”, Tyler gave a sheepish shrug. “It was a pretty quiet border patrol posting. The most excitement we had was a flood on Oder 4. But this – “He gestured at his trifle, “isn’t too bad. You’ve got better replimats than we had.”

Later, after Tyler had left, Gabriel gave himself a disapproving glare in the bathroom mirror. He was not a man prone to lying to himself and Ash Tyler was an attractive man he had bonded with quickly under extreme circumstances.

That Gabriel was his commanding officer, his captain paled in comparison to Tyler’s status as a prisoner of war and sexual abuse survivor. Combined with Gabriel being the one who had rescued him and his own desire to trust Tyler because he was one of the few people who knew what he had done to his old command, was a recipe for disaster.

Still he couldn’t bring himself to turn Tyler away the next time he stopped by Gabriel’s quarters or even to hint that his visits might be inappropriate. It wouldn’t hurt to be Tyler’s friend, he reasoned. Just his friend, nothing more and nothing less. And he did his best to keep it that way but his hand still found its way to Tyler’s shoulder way more often than strictly necessary and when he didn’t think about it he stood closer to Tyler than anyone else on his crew.

Somewhere between Tyler admitting, “Sometimes I wish that someone had done for me what you did for your old crew”, and Gabriel’s own confession about his eyes, “I kept them that way as a means to punish myself for surviving”, Tyler morphed into Ash in his thoughts. And thinking of him as Ash was dangerous. Just because a few weeks had passed didn’t mean that the reasons why letting Ash too close had lost any of their validity. Even if he seemed to adjust well to life on the Discovery, made friends with his team and smiled more and more easily.

/

The first time Gabriel heard Ash laugh was after he had recounted the downright hilarious and overtop version of their escape from the Klingon prison ship after the story had been cycled through the rumour mill for a couple weeks.

“..and then you killed six Klingons with your bare hands”, Gabriel added while Ash was already shaking with helpless giggles. 

“How many did you get?” Ash asked between taking a few deep, gulping breaths.

“I’m not bragging about my fictional kill count”, Gabriel replied, which resulted in another laugh from Ash.

“That many?”

“That many.”

The laughter eased into a comfortable silence. For once they weren’t in warp or a planetary orbit and the window gave a beautiful view of the stars outside. It was also slightly romantic, Gabriel’s treacherous mind reminded him.

“When I was a child I wanted to visit all the stars in the universe”, Ash said eventually as he looked out of the window. “That’s what I told my sister. That I was going to be the first one to see them all. That’s why I joined Starfleet.”

Gabriel had had this kind of conversation before, especially since the war had started. It inevitably ended with an expression of disappointment. Still he asked, “And now?”

“I am still glad I joined Starfleet”, Ash said, surprising Gabriel with his answer. “If I was down there, I’d be helpless. Up here I can fight.” He tore his eyes away from the stars and looked at Gabriel instead. Something changed between them as the moment stretched, both of them unwilling to look away first.

“I am glad you feel that way”, Gabriel said without breaking the eye contact. Ash turned towards him and Gabriel suddenly couldn’t remember if they had been sitting this close since the beginning. His lips felt dry and as he licked them he glanced down at Ash’s lips, slightly parted, full and beautiful. In the quiet room Gabriel could hear him breathe.

“I would like to kiss you”, Gabriel said and he couldn’t remember his voice ever sounding so rough before, “If you want me to.”

“Yes. “It was some sort of messy permission, wavering and uncertain but willing.

Gabriel hesitated. “If you don’t want this – “He said, his voice too low and too dark, making it clear that he did want this, “-Ash, please, say no if you don’t.”

Ash kissed him as if he had been starved for affection, his hands resting against the sides of Gabriel’s neck, light and trembling like butterflies. “Yes”, he breathed against Gabriel’s lips. “Yes.”

Their second kiss was better, deeper, filled with confidence and knowledge that they wanted each other. Gabriel wrapped an arm around Ash’s waist and pulled him closer, enjoying the feeling of Ash’s body against his.

“I wasn’t sure”, Ash said when they broke apart, “Thank you.”

“There is no need to thank me”, Gabriel replied huskily and caressed Ash’s face before he kissed him again simply because he could. Gabriel could think of a dozen reasons why this was a mistake and an equal number of reasons why it could never continue but he chose not to think about them right now. Instead he thought about Ash’s smile reaching all the way up to his eyes and how, just maybe, just for now, that was enough of a reason.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me [ here](http://smaragdbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
